by Watson, Tom
“No. too... too-much, [he spent many moments trying to remember the words], we make, boat. For, Ember.” Besides, he thought, I knew you would pull something like that out of the bag... I saw it all harvests before and now it has come to pass. If only you understood, my little moon dancer. Ember replaced the gem in her bag and leaned forward giving the old man a deep hug. Her eyes held rims of wetness as she hugged Nor'Gar for a short time. To his people this would have been considered a bit too forward, but to Ember's more relaxed customs this was quite acceptable. Old Nor'Gar just sat there accepting the hug with a slight wetness forming in his own eyes and shivers moving up and down his spine as he recalled a private memory Ember knew nothing about. Meanwhile, a different pair of eyes boiled in anger from behind a hut not far from where Ember and Nor’Gar were. Aya stared in disbelief.
Build her a boat? We don’t even know this person! she thought.
“You know that she will leave us when we finish the boat,” Aya said as she leveled her gaze at Ven'Gar, the pair standing alone in their hut shortly afterward. Aya had been the youngest, and probably the prettiest, of the women from the group before Ember had come. She had surrounded herself with mock innocents and carefully staged events since leaving Tornhemal, the village from which Nor'Gar's group came.
Aya's goals were not so much ruthless as they were opportunistic. She was determined to have a high place in her village and this was her one chance. Aya’s mother had died during childbirth when Aya was young. Their family was of low standing within the tribe and her mother had left Aya with nothing; that is, nothing material. She had left Aya with her good looks, which Aya now used as a weapon sharper than obsidian, to craft the men around her as a knapper shapes flint. The tribe’s trade groups tended to produce some of the greatest leaders of the tribe, such as the High Hunter Nor'Gar, and she meant to become wife to the one who was strongest, upon their return to Tornhemal.
The problem was that Ven'Gar, the most skilled hunter in the group and the most likely to take charge if something happened to Nor'Gar, was all too often caught looking at Ember, as the little creature plucked one large fish from the deeper water after another. Ven'Gar was her best hope at a life of status and ease. He was strong, well connected, easy to manipulate, and not rough on the eyes. She would merely need to join with him and bear a child. That was hard enough without some new exotic woman arriving and causing her problems. Aya did not hate Ember, but she saw Ember as a threat to be removed.
“I hope she remains with us and perhaps returns to Tornhemal after we finish our trade,” Ven'Gar stated without any comprehension of the evil looks he received from Aya.
How typical, she thought, he doesn't even know when he is being dumb. Well, she would just have to figure out some way to discredit or remove Ember herself. If only the right opportunity would arise.
“She is helping us with our usage of the trade language, with Kis’tra's help I hear. That will be useful when we arrive south. Now, Nor'Gar won't be the only one who can speak for us,” he concluded.
Dumb as you are, you have a point, Aya conceded to herself. If something happened to the old man before then, perhaps Ven'Gar could assert some control and even return with some good trades... She would just have to work on tuning him a bit. She produced a mock smile which seemed to satisfy Ven'Gar, who plainly couldn't see the venom in her eyes. She abruptly dropped her clothing to the floor, standing before Ven'Gar. His eyes locked onto her, all thoughts of Ember lost. He looked upon her now as he would a doe for the hunt. She looked back at him with dangerous and intent eyes, like the wolf she was.
Too easy, she thought and almost laughed at the irony of it all. Poor Ven'Gar mistook the smile for interest.
Chapter 11: To Build a Boat
To Neolithic peoples, boats were useful and complex tools. Boats allowed faster travel than could be afforded by the raw untamed land, having no paved roads or directional markers of any sophistication. The first “boats” were likely simple logs a person would sit upon to float. This caused problems in the cold and didn't afford any protection for the legs, a problem in some lands.
Early boats, such as the boat Ember used, were dugout boats made from a single solid piece of wood. These simple craft were useful in navigating the inland waterways, lakes, and shallow streams, but useless for long voyages or ocean going. Though lacking the features required for ocean journeys, the dugout boat would remain a staple craft in Neolithic Europe for thousands of years. A few thousand years after Ember's time, stretched hide and eventually wood plank would be used instead of solid wood.
The creation of a dugout boat was a time consuming process which involved controlled burning and digging with specialized stone tools. For the people of Tornhemal to build a boat for Ember, they must truly have found her good company. It is necessary to understand that, to a small band of humans without advanced technology, the addition of a young and healthy member was beneficial to the overall success of the group. Adding Ember effectively aided the trade group from Tornhemal.
The next day Ember approached Tor'kal and Sv'en. The two men were by the stream where the yellow rocks came from, using clay plates, “panning”, to obtain the substance. Ember approached the two men, who looked up and waved a greeting. Tor'kal was a tall blonde haired man with dark skin and light features much like the others. Tor’kal was serious and quiet, always carefully working to get his job done and done well. He wore a leather apron and leggings with a leather shirt, which he had cast aside due to the heat.
Sv'en, by contrast, was always telling jokes and looking for fun. Sv’en was a little shorter than Tor’kal and had a streak of light red hair. He wore leggings with a shorter apron and a reed smock. At the moment, Sv'en was busy pulling at a tooth in his mouth and wearing an odd set of expressions. Tooth issues were always a concern, as an inflamed tooth could kill even a strong hunter. In fact, one of the most common causes of death was a sickness brought on by a sore tooth. The only known remedy was to pull the tooth from the mouth and hope the body healed. Ember hoped Sv'en was merely dislodging something caught in his teeth and nothing more sinister.
Both of the men were covered in mud and wet up to their knees. Near them worked Kat'ja, one of the only people of the group with dark features. She had similarly light tanned skin but nearly black hair with dark eyes, the most exotic eyes that Ember had seen. She wore a leather skirt much as Ember now wore, and normally wore a leather shirt, which was now lying beside the stream with Sv’en and Tor’kal’s shirts. Ember wondered why Kat'ja looked so different from the others. Even her face was different, having eyes sat more widely apart and a soft appearance with thicker lips and more oval eyes and a rounder nose. The others had more angular features and thin lips. Her skin was also just a little darker and with softer features. One day, she would have to ask Kat’ja where she came from. Perhaps she was like Kanter, from another tribe. Though she looked different from the others, her clothing was exactly the same. Their clothing was more leather than reed and much more suited for colder weather, Ember decided.
Ember addressed Tor'kal, whom she knew understood some of the trade language.
“Nor'Gar say make boat for-Ember. I-need, boat, go west.” After she was done, Tor'kal gave her a short nod and spoke to Sv'en and Kat'ja. It sounded to Ember by their words, which she now understood a few of, and from their body language that the three would help her with the boat. Ember wondered if Nor'Gar had already spoken to the three, given how easily they understood her request and agreed to do it. If he had, Tor'kal and the others made no mention of it.
"Yellow Rock," Ember said in the Tornhemal language, gesturing to the stream and the panning operation the three were engaged in.
Tor'kal waved his hand dismissively, “Rocks, day. Boat, at-night.” Ember believed that she had understood, though these people tended to sequence their words in a way which Ember still had troubles with. She understood the Tornhemal words for “Rocks” and “at-night”. It sounded to her as though they wou
ld build the boat in the evening, after work. This would take much longer, but not delay the panning.
Putting aside her suppositions over the order of work, Ember walked over to the river and picked up one of the clay plates. The plate looked like it had been quickly made with river clay and a fire, judging by the blackened marks on the bottom of the plate and the pitting. Such a plate would not last very long, being both porous and fragile, but many could be easily made. Judging by the shards of broken plate all around the bank of the stream, that was precisely what had been occurring. Seeing her apparent interest, Kat'ja walked over to Ember to show her how to pan.
“Here,” she said in her own language, kneeling beside Ember and placing her hands on the sides of Ember’s pan. She took Ember's hands as they grasped the pan and moved the pan into the water, dipping it into the silt. Kat'ja placed her hands in the silt filled pan, still submerged, and agitated the silt with the water. The light silt was literally blown aside from the sudden currents of water made by Kat'ja's quick hand motions. Ember noted that larger stones would not be moved by the agitation. Since the yellow stones were heavy, this might mean they would stay in the pan, Ember supposed. Next, Kat'ja indicated that Ember should lift the pan. Ember removed the pan from the water as Kat’ja's hands motioned. She held the dirt and water up to look for the yellow rocks.
Ember started poking the dirt and rocks with her finger, but Kat’ja laughed and stopped her.
“No silly, don't use your hands,” Kat’ja said in the Tornhemal language. Ember didn't understand, but followed Kat’ja’s motions. Kat'ja moved her hands around in a gentle circular motion to indicate what to do. Ember followed suit, swirling the water carefully in the pan. The remaining heavier silt and water started to wash over the top of the pan, leaving the heavier rocks behind. The yellow rocks were indeed quite heavy, and Ember quickly realized that her suspicions were correct and that they would remain in the pan if she kept doing this! The actual process took a good period of time for each pan of silt, yielding few tiny bits of yellow rocks per pan.
“Ember, good,” Sv’en said in the trade language for Ember's benefit, to which Tor’kal nodded in agreement. With smiles all around, Ember started her new job as a gold panner. Ember was off to an enthusiastic but slow start, breaking her first plate and often swishing all of the dirt into the stream, but soon enough she was panning with ease and good results. That first day of panning, the group found a few tiny pieces of the yellow rock and many tiny specs. Ember was worried that she had not done her part, but Sv'en assured her that this was actually a good day of panning.
That evening, Sv'en spent time by the central fire preparing the yellow rocks. He placed the rocks on a thin stone and carefully placed the stone into the center of the roaring fire. He used two long sticks to maneuver the stone about. The fire was not hot enough to melt the rocks, but the heat made working with the yellow rocks easier. After a good while in the heat, Sv'en would remove the thin flat stone and tap the yellow rock flakes into a solid single piece, more or less, using a flattened stone. The people from the south had created methods for making fires hot enough to fully melt the rocks, which could be poured into clay or sand molds and later reworked for smoothness.
These techniques belonged to people who lived much farther south than even Nor'Gar's troop would journey. Between them lay many mountains and rivers. Few would make the journey over the mountains and never during the colder seasons. It was the people from beyond those mountains who would trade most dearly for the yellow rocks. The southern villages, where these rocks were headed, would in turn trade during the next warm season with traders over the mountains, from those distant lands.
Ember had seen the simple pendants made for Kis’tra and Zhek from the yellow rocks, and she had to admit that they had a particular appeal. It was the weight that really impressed her. Ember thought about it, and she was sure of this fact. The beautiful reflections in the light were also important, but that little tug of weight around a neck reminded the wearer of the significance of the pendant. Significance and memories were important to people and Ember hoped these little speckles of yellow that she found would bring someone, somewhere, a little joy.
Over the next ten-day, Ember and her new found friends worked towards building a boat when they were not otherwise working on their group chores. The boat had started as a single felled log which had been spotted by Sv'en nearly a ten-day before Ember's arrival. The branches and bumps of the log were carefully removed with a sharpened stone hand axe, by Sv'en, leaving a rough but mostly bark-less piece of wood. The axe head was a sharp, worked, stone with a groove in the middle allowing for easy fit into the handle which was a forked stick with rawhide binding the stone in place. Every few days of use, the axe required that the rawhide be tightened by wetting and then drying. The hide would eventually decay as it was not tanned, but would provide a quality axe until then. The handle and the head of a good hand axe would be kept for many harvests.
After the axe removed the bark and limbs, the friends, with the assistance of three other men, carefully carried the log back to camp where it could be worked. The wood was as wide as Ember's hips with room on each side of about two or three fingers width, and as long as two men. The finished boat would actually be big enough for perhaps two people, but Ember assumed she would load it with supplies.
During the first few nights of work, the men carefully dug grooves into the top of the log into which they added hot embers from a fire. They would blow on the embers, even adding burning tinder when needed, to cause small fires. The burning dug into the wood much more easily than an axe. Ember watched the work as she sang a song to keep everyone entertained.
After each burning, hand tools made of stone would be used to remove the charred wood. The process of digging out the center of the log with fire took much of the early night for about eight days. The friends worked diligently after each hard day of work. Ember continued to help with the panning, some farming, and fishing, during the day. While the men worked the inside of the boat, the women used sharp stone tools and rougher rocks on the outside of the boat. Slowly, they removed the tiny bits of remaining bark and bumps, finally smoothing the outside of the boat. After a ten-day of work, the boat had a pointed front and a dugout center large enough to accommodate Ember and her belongings with room to spare.
During the work, several other group members came by to help or just to see what was going on. Ven'Gar and Tor'kal would scrape the bottom of the boat while Sv'en worked on the bow with his axe. Unfortunately, Ven’Gar’s help ended when Aya happened by and promptly dragged him off for some errand for which she had need of “his skills”. Strangely, neither of them had returned to help since. The boat building operation functioned just fine without their help.
Ember found Tor'kal and Sv'en to be entertaining people, both being argumentative and strong willed. The two men fought like a couple as they worked while Ember and Kat'ja laughed. Even Kis’tra came to help, when she was finished farming and fishing. Kis’tra was not very good with panning or boat building, but she was able to help with some of the organization.
Kis’tra and Ember also continued to work together on their verbal skills each night after work on the boat was finished, as they shared the same hut. This was quite the work day, but Ember couldn't complain with all of the help she was receiving from people whom she had only just met. As the nights rolled along, Ember worried about the close space shared with a young couple, but Kis’tra and Zhek tended to remain outdoors working or socializing, sometimes disappearing into the woods at night, and generally only sleeping in their bed. This left Ember with her own soft fur bed, some privacy, and time to recover from each long day of work.
Ember spent her nights dreaming of swimming in the warm waters by the bank of the Great River, but unfortunately the warm seasons didn't last very long and the weather was starting to turn at that point. The days were still mildly warm, but the nights were slowly becoming cooler and less friendly. There woul
d be perhaps four ten-days before Ember would need to find shelter for the cold season and only one or two ten-days before she might find the air too cool to swim. The waters didn't change as fast as the air but getting out of water into even mildly cool air felt horrible and made a person sick. Fish oil could be applied to the legs allowing the women of her tribe to wade into the cooler waters and fish, but when the true cold seasons came, only boats, traps, tethered spear fishing, and some ice fishing were used. With this in mind, Ember began to have misgivings about continuing her trip. Each night as she and Kis’tra sat talking and practicing her verbal skills in the trade language, Ember would day dream about following the group to finish their trade.
What could it possibly hurt? She wondered.
* * *
Pak watched from the brush as Ember and a light blonde haired woman walked towards the camp-proper singing some sort of working song. He had seen enough. These people had taken in the girl who had caused his group much trouble, though he couldn't help how he secretly felt an odd sense of respect for her as she had taught that aggressive and bullying Rosif a lesson he would not forget. Pak had troubles with his secret feelings of relief at her departure and that he now found her safe. She was a sort of enemy now, perhaps, and before she had been a mere woman; his groups' property. He had considered taking her as a wife, but this had been a fanciful notion. He was the youngest of his group and would have the last say if any, and secondly he hardly knew her. She would probably dislike such a young warrior without any name for himself. She might even resent being captured, but maybe not. A woman by herself, in fact many men as well, in the wilds would probably die without protection. Certainly she would have come to understand this, had she remained and witnessed more of the wilds on the way back to his village.